Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1887-08-06
$500 PER ANNUM IN ADVANCE.

THE ONO republican convention at
Toledo, in one of the planks Of their
platform, demanded Stree ballot
and a fair count" and emphasized
this demand by endorsing the presi-
dental aspirations of Hon. John
Sherman. This venerable chestnut,
in response to the endorsement, said:
Democrats might say they (the re-
publicans) were raising the bloody
shirt when they demanded, for the
future, honesty and good faith in
counting the votes of the people"
When it is remembered that John
Sherman was one Of the chief instru-
ments used in counting out Tilden,
who was elected, and counting in
Hayes, who was not elected, that he
was sent down to New Orleans on
purpose to engineer through this
most stupendous theft of the age
this outrage on popular government
by suppressing the vote Of the State
of Louisiana and foisting upon the
people of this free government man
who had been defeated before the
people, when it is borne in mind
that this was done merely because
the people were powerless to prevent
it, the purse and the sword both
being at the command and under the
control of the republican party, and
hence this seizing upon the presi-
dency was little short of highway
robbery, perpetrated under the forms
of law, then this demand, supple
mented, rs it is, by Sherman
speech, evinces an amount of cheek
that is absolutely appalling. 1t looks
very much like the case of the pick
pocket who stole a watch, and, find
ing the crowd by one of those mis-
takes common in the excitement in
cident to the pursuit of a recent law
breaker, disposed to fasten the crime
upon an entirely innocent man,
GENEROUSLY joined in the hue and
cry against him to divert attention
from himself, the real malefactor.
The republican party, during the
pendency of its reconstruction meas
ures in the South, has been guilty OF
more crimes against civil liberty,
such as suppressing by bogus legisla-
tive enactments the right of the
people to the elective franchise,
throwing out as many votes as they
pleased when cast 50 as to count in
their man, overaweing and intimi.
dating and dispensing legislatures al
the point of the bayonet, confirming
the people in dungeons without au
thority of law, appointing governors
to rule over the people by arbitrary
military force, suspending the writ O.
habeas corpus, and maintaining legis
latures so-called that were never
elected by the people, and aiding
such miscreants eXtravagantly tt
squander the public property, thar
any party in modern history
Whenever a party stained all ovel
with such high-handed crimes agains
popular liberty gravely and seriously
demands free ballot and affair coun
and poses as a martyr on this ques
ton, the patent hypocrisy of such {
demand is truly astonishing. AnC
when John Sherman, of Eliza Pink
ston fame, rises to his feet and sec
onds the demand with a speech full
of stale, shallow and mendaciou
platitudes, directly and by inuendt
charging these crimes upon tn,
Southern people, the farce becomc
too disgusting to be any longer tol
Grated. The people, in all thi
droary and most indefatigable pur
suit Of the spoils of Office by part,
covered with fraud and stepped t,
Sthe eyes in political iniquity, who's
very existence depends upon keeping
up sectional strife by false and fraud
ulent Misrepresentation of the ac
tons and sentiments of the citizens
- OF the Southern States, have the con
ISOLATION of knowing that the people
,nftSle United States are not all fool
and Nnaves and are still capable of self
government-that "truth is omnipo
tent and public justice certain"
MURDERED HIS MOTHER.